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Jan 28 Note-1

Rohan Bopanna easily qualified
into the main draw at the $15K Abu Dhabi F2 futures, with a 62 63 win over
Alexander Jakupovic (GRE,824) today .. Vishal Punna went down 26 67(3)
to Wijnmalen of Nederlands, but it was still a very promising outing for
unranked Vishal to reach the final round of qualies with wins over those
like Laurence Tieleman .. Bopanna took the spot of the original 7th seed
Jarislaw Levinsky who withdrew due to injury after the qualies started,
the spot thus going to a qualifier .. He plays #308 Filippo Messori (ITA)
who is the highest ranked unseeded player though, tomorrow at 10.30 am
.. In doubles, Rohan is in the main draw with the talented Taiwanese youngster,
Yen-Hsun Lu, and they play the 3rd seeds Leonardo Azzaro (ITA) and Marco
Chiudinelli (SUI).

If you are wondering what
our women players are up to - none of them have started playing much in
the pro events this year yet, except for Manisha who was in a qualies in
New Zealand a couple of weeks back .. I don't think anyone is playing this
week but I will confirm that later.

Jan 27 Note-2

Had a phone call with Harsh
Mankad .. He says he is not sure if the wrist problem that kept him away
from today's college tie is a repeat of a wrist tendinitis he had after
playing a few weeks of pro events last summer, which had returned a few
times during the fall but did not bother him much .. During practice yesterday
he suddenly felt a sharp pain on his wrist while returning a hard-hit ball
.. He was in a good bit of pain today and the trainers decided to rest
him .. He will see the doctor tomorrow and we will know what's up.

Good news from Abu Dhabi
.. Rohan Bopanna and Vishal Punna have reached the final round of qualies
for the $15K futures .. Rohan, seeded 2nd in the qualies beat Sunil Kumar,
62 61 in the second round .. Vishal Punna is turning into a bit
of a story .. He was the only Indian to get to second round last week,
and turned a great performance yesterday to upset Laurence Tieleman ..
The 17 yr old Vishal is unranked in ATP (he had stopped playing junior
ITF events since turning 16 in mid-2000 and has only played a few of the
pro satellites and domestic events since then) .. He came up with another
good win today - against Febi Widhiyanto (INA, 997), 75 46 63 .. Vijayendra
Laad went down to Pavel Ivanov (RUS,82) today .. In the final qualies,
Rohan plays Alexander Jakupovic (GRE,824) and Vishal plays Boy Wijnmalen
(NED,1110) ..

The grade-4 ITF junior international
starting in Chandigarh on Monday .. According to the Chandigarh Tribune,
in an interesting twist in the draw, last week's finalists Saurabh Singh
and Tushar Liberhan will meet in the first round .. Amanjot Singh is the
top seed in the boys' draw and he has drawn Chatwinder Singh, last week's
semifinalist .. I don't like these guys having to play in the first round
itself .. Tushar gets a chance for revenge and Amanjot better watch out
against Chatwinder Singh .. Megha Vakharia joins on the girls' side as
the top seed .. The qualifiers from today are, for boys: Lior Barbash (ISR),
VM Ranjeet (IND), Asif Choea (ISR) and Edwin Gerad (USA), and for girls:
Asha Nandakumar (IND), Rui Du (CHN), Sun Sheng (CHN) and Isha Toor (IND).

Jan 27 Note-1

The U of Minnesota website
says that Harsh Mankad has a wrist injury and had to be on the sidelines
and watch the university's tie today against the U of William & Mary
.. Will need to find out what is up - let us hope it is not anything serious
.. With Davis Cup in 12 days and Mahesh nursing a hip problem, we don't
need more bad news.

Jan 26 Note-2

The Abu Dhabi $15K F2 futures
qualies started today .. Rohan Bopanna is there, and is the second seed
with a Q1 bye in the 3-round qualies .. I had complained last week about
how few Indians had gone there - it turns out that Rohan could not get
a visa on time to go last week .. Good news today from Indians -- Big win
for young Vishal Punna who upset Laurence Tieleman (who was in the top-100
just a couple of years back and a qualifier last week in the F1 there)
by a score of 75 63!! .. Sunil Kumar moved to Q2 with a 63 30 (retd) win
over Jimsher Enukidze of Georgia .. Vijayendra Laad beat local guy Nader
Mohammed from UAE easily, 62 61 .. Md Yasser Arafat from Hyderabad lost
to Hendri Pramono (INA,1141), 26 36 .. In the Q2 round, Sunil Kumar plays
#2 Bopanna (cool match!), Laad plays Pavel Ivanov (RUS,820) and Vishal
plays Febi Widhiyanto (INA,997) .. Thanks go to the anonymous friend transmitting
the news from there.

Harsh Mankad, ranked #2 in
singles in the US colleges, started the spring college tennis season last
night with a tough two-set win over the #88 college player, to help the
32nd ranked Univ of Minnesota, upset the #7 ranked Notre Dame Univ .. His
record for the year is 13-1 and this is the 10th or 11th win over a top-100
college player for him .. Harsh had to pull off a 76 64 win late at night
to break a 3-3 tie between the teams after the earlier matches ..
Unranked Mankad/Haug had already upset the #6 ranked doubles team to win
the doubles point after a 1-1 tie in doubles as well .. In college tennis,
winning two out of three doubles matches count for one point, there being
6 singles matches, #1 vs #1, #2 vs #2 etc on either side with each of the
singles win counting for one point .. Mankad played continuously for 3.5
hours last night, and said he was rather surprised that he was feeling
unusually strong even at the end .. Actually he had told me last month
that one of the advices from Ramesh Krishnan was to play longer periods
continuously every day to build up on reserves and be ready for the 5-set
kind of matches needed in Davis Cup .. Harsh had said that he was going
to do that during the December break and it seems like he has been doing
just that (and I also think he took it personally that he cramped up in
the 5th match against Japan and lost it in three sets after being up a
set and a break over top-200 Motomura, though I think it may have been
because of all the standing up and clapping and cheering during LP's barnburner
5 set comeback upset of Suzuki) .. He will play one more college tie before
taking off to Lebanon for Davis Cup next weekend - Anyway, it is good that
he is getting a bit of match practice before getting to Lebanon - it would
be worrying for him to get there without having played matches for a couple
of months altogether.

Back to junior news - from
the ITF grade-3 last week in Delhi (see all the results here):

Saurabh Singh ended Tushar
Liberhan's run in the final at the grade-3 junior ITF event in Delhi yesterday,
by a 62 62 score .. Tushar had looked good all week with his "no-nonsense
tennis" as one newspaper correspondent said (actually another newspaper
friend wrote to me recently after watching him at the DSCL that Tushar
has the Harsh Mankad style of solid game and temperament) - he has reportedly
improved a lot in the last few months and has improved in accurate ground
strokes .. Saurabh on the other hand had beaten in the semis, by an almost-shocking
61 61 score, Dor Wertheimer (ISR) who had beaten top seed Jaco Mathew and
6th seed Somdev Dev Varman in straight sets earlier .. Saurabh did not
let Tushar get going in the final.

I have watched Saurabh
Singh from when he appeared in the ITF rankings as a 14 year old three
years back, but he has moved up only rather slowly in the rankings .. This
is really the first "big splash" title from him - and it is a big one!
.. His best before this were grade-3 QF appearances in Malaysia and Thailand
last October and a grade-4 Semi last January in Delhi .. He played a few
events around the world last year, and seems to have got battle-hardened
a bit .. The newspaper reports talk about his serving accuracy (he is a
big server) to have improved, as well as about some work he has been putting
in on physical development under the direction of coach Kawaljeet
Singh in Chandigarh .. His 6-best point total goes from 115 to 165 and
he will shoot up from #158 to inside the top-85 with this win .. That will
place Saurabh as the #2 Indian behind Amanjot Singh (also a Kawaljeet Singh
product, as was Sunil Kumar - though Amanjot seems to have stalled a bit
over the last year or so) .. Saurabh was only 16 till a month back, but
this will be his last year in the u18 juniors, as the age on Jan 1st is
what determines the junior eligibility in a year .. The runner up, 15 yr
old Tushar Liberhan is also from Chandigarh and seems to be among
the ones to watch for the next two years in the juniors with Karan Rastogi
being the other .. He increases his points from 50 to 95 and should go
up from #291 to around #175 with his Delhi results .. The 3rd Indian in
the semifinals, Chatwinder Singh (yet another CLTA find from Chandigarh,
who if I am not mistaken, had moved to BAT in Chennai) moves up nearly
150 points to near top-250 .. He has one year left in the juniors after
2002 - and he is also one to watch carefully ..

On the girls side, what can
one say about 16 yr old Isha Lakhani? .. She has only played four
ITF junior events in the last one year (the Chennai and Mumbai grade-4
in September and the Asian Closed in Delhi in December), winning three
titles and reaching the QF at the Asian juniors .. A 16-1 record .. Actually
before that she had played only two ITF events which were in Sep of 2000
in India when she reached QFs both times (a three-set loss to Sania Mirza
remains in my mind) .. A 20-3 record in the ITF junior career is something
special .. Her only loss was at Asian juniors; a three-set loss due to
an injury problem to Pichaya Laosirichon of Thailand, whom she had beaten
flatly 62 60 two months earlier .. Her point total goes up to 180 from
120 and that places her as the #2 Indian behind Sania Mirza, ahead of Megha
Vakharia .. She is 16 and has one year left after this - hopefully she
will get to play all seven grand slam juniors from now on .. She will need
to pick up another 60 to 80 points more from a couple of good showings
soon, to move into the top-50 and qualify for that .. I don't know what
is going on with her situation, regarding foreign travel, etc, though ..
Then there is 14 yr old Kartiki Bhat - she will now move up about
300 spots from #576 after having played only two ITF u18 events, starting
with the grade-4 in Sri Lanka last week when she made the semi .. She is
3 months younger than Sania and has three years remaining in the juniors
.. Her upset of the second seed Sanaa in the semis was a significant result,
and she gave Isha a run for the money in a 46 64 46 match .. Kartiki is
*good* !

It may look like I am reading
too much into these kids' rankings and results, but I am not -- there has
indeed been a significant upgrade in the quality of our 14-16 age group
kids .. Two years back when we hardly had anybody playing in grand slam
draws, I was very concerned about where Indian tennis was going .. The
point is not for the "glory" of seeing Indians listed in the draw - it
is because those are the rare kind of tournaments where they would get
to play the top-25 quality junior players and gauge exactly where they
stand and how much of work they need to put in .. But we are doing alright
now, and rest assured that we will have 3 or 4 kids appearing in grand
slam juniors regularly for the foreseeable future - and given time, we
will see some of them turn into world-class pros .. But it will also require
some modern coaching, which on the other hand remains as an issue of deep
concern - but that is a long discussion for another time .. I better ease
up for now - I have bad-mouthed Indian coaches too much already, which
is really not fair, as I am sitting here in the US not seeing their work,
and I don't even know much of tennis to judge their coaching .. If any
of the coaches read my ramblings, they would probably want to kill me for
stereotyping them all to be old-fashioned in their tennis coaching ideas!
-- but that is fine with me; I would be happy if I can, in my own small
way, light a fire under anybody's bottom to produce better results .. And
really, results is all I complain about! .. Perhaps we will hear more in
the future about Indian coaches doing better motivational work and in teaching
the mental toughness aspects, about them doing stop-frame film studies,
about them measuring their ward's muscle sizes, stop-watch timing their
running speeds, and making them hit groundies for hours on end to fixed
points in courts, etc, etc .. And hopefully we will soon stop hearing of
the back-hand slice being taught as a "weapon" rather than as a junk shot
to be very judiciously used, at least in modern tennis (well, there I go
again, acting like a tennis expert :-)) ..

Anyway, for now, our players
are getting to play better quality tennis against each other and occasionally
against quality foreign players - and there seems to be some seriousness
out there among the players and their parents (and OK, from some coaches
too :-)) about setting higher goals in tennis and in believing that they
*can* get somewhere in tennis .. AITA has also been playing their role,
with those like their junior development officer (and coach) Sunil Yejaman
taking a lot of interest in what the juniors are up to, I believe .. Sending
teams of players to East Asian circuits is one of the good things AITA
has done, along with bringing higher-grade junior events to India like
the Asian Open .. They have said that they will try to get the dates adjusted
next year for the grade-3 delhi event to avoid schedule conflict with the
Australian Open which caused Megha, Rohan, Amanjot, etc to miss the Indian
events ..

Jan 26 Note-1

Sorry for being away, traveling,
for another couple of days .. Here is the update from the last two days.

Things seem to be moving
fast in Bangalore for the ATP World Doubles Challenge Cup starting next
Tuesday, the 29th .. The website has come up too -- and I expect
it to be good like last time, with ball-by-ball score updates, etc .. Check
out http://www.worlddoubles.com
..

Australian Open news -- Bhupathi-Likhovtseva
went down in the MxD semifinal, 63 46 s6-10 to Kevin Ullyett and Daniela
Hantuchova [super tiebreak for 3rd set 6-10] .. Daniela is a young upcoming
player with great doubles abilities as well (she was in the women's doubles
final with Sanchez) .. The match stats seem to show our pair to have done
better in almost all categories (including the one stat which correlates
most with win-loss, which is the total number of points won), but somehow
MB-EL lost in the end, it seems .. Well, if it is any consolation, LP and
MB can say that they only lost to the finalists .. The other MxD finalists
are Eltis and Suarez who beat LP-Oremans in R2 .. Llodra-Santoro who beat
LP-MB in the doubles R2 finished runners-up to 9th seeds Knowles-Nestor
as well .. Capriati did the title job over Hingis and Safin plays Johansson
in the men's final tomorrow, as you would know by now.

In the AO juniors, Sania
Mirza went down in the second round of doubles and singles .. In singles,
she could not do much against Samantha Stosur, a WTA #258 player -- 16
26 score .. The scoreline disappointed me a bit, though I fully expected
it to be some sort of a miracle for her to beat somebody that older and
experienced .. Only the near top-10 quality junior players can usually
beat top-250 caliber WTA players (though Stosur got beaten by a 14 yr old
who seems to be the next huge "phenom" from Bollitieri's academy, Maria
Sharapova of RUS .. Watch out for her; actually write the name down --
you will here a hell of a lot about her soon!) .. It will take some time
and a lot of hard work work for Sania to move up from the near #30 ranking
to inside the top-15 - I am sure she will get there later, but it may also
be time for her to get help in taking the "proverbial next step" and that
may require some serious top-quality coaching (possibly aborad) .. I don't
know much details on Sania's current plans, but I hope all help is provided
to her .. We are talking top world-class junior talent here, and whoever
can loosen purse-strings should do so without any concerns - and the time
is more than ripe .. She has done her part in showing her hunger and
attitude .. She has shown he has tremendous talent too .. She has steadily
improved playing wherever and whenever she could get good competition ..
She does not have to travel to every other small event to pick up points
and stay ranked highly to play higher-grade events and get such quality
matches, now .. And she can take time off to really improve her overall
game and take the next step .. Let us get some serious coaching done ..
In fact, (and I know I will sound unintentionally harsh and critical here
- but you know what I mean), I am quite sure that she will have trouble
moving up much from her current ranking for a while -- and it will really
not be because of Sania and it is certainly not a knock on her current
coaches either, as they have done a fantastic job with her so far .. But
this is the cut-throat world of tennis now, and let's face it, Indian coaches
have never produced a top-100 woman player (or really even a top-300 player,
as Niru improved in Europe) .. If we all mess this thing up with Sania,
we will regret it for ever .. Again, I don't know the details of her stuation
now - and I am writing this more from having seen past mistakes in Indian
sports.

Also in doubles, Sania and
Da-Jung Hong lost 26 46 to the top seeds Kuznetsova-Mezak, who were way
too tough and have reached the doubles final without dropping a set there
so far .. Tope seeds in the boys doubles, Stephen Amritraj and Luka Gegorc
retired in the 3rd set of their QF match .. Not sure why - I hope Stephen
is OK ..

At the Delhi juniors Saurabh
Singh, in a bit of a surprise to me, beat Tushar Liberhan in the finals,
announcing that he has finally taken the "next step" .. Isha Lakhani continued
her splendid run in the juniors by beating kartiki Bhat in the final, but
14 yr old Kartiki showed a lot, in taking her to three sets! .. Comments
on the Delhi event later.

Jan 23 Note-4

At the Delhi ITF grade-3
juniors, today was a good day for Indians .. The one I have been hyping
all week, 15 yr old Tushar Liberhan of Chandigarh, followed his upset of
the 4th seed with another upset of the 5th seed, Immanuel Prabowo of Indonesia
(#257) .. Saurabh Singh, Chatwinder Singh, Isha Lakhani, Sanaa Bhambri
etc also had good wins to advance to the semis (which gives 30 points each
- as good as winning a grade-5 event) .. Kartiki Bhat, about to turn 15
and #2 in AITA's domestic u14 ranks, beat 13 yr old Sandri Gangotri (#1
in u14) by a score of 60 60 .. Kartiki is very talented, but 2nd seed Sanaa
Bhambri will be a tough test for her in the semi .. Sania, Isha, Sanaa,
Kartiki etc form a prertty solid group of under-16 girls for the future
for India .. Same on the boys side with Karan, Tushar, Vishnu Vardhan,
etc .. Things are looking up .. See the Delhi
juniors page.

Jan 23 Note-3

Did not follow MB's mixed
doubles match - because, we could be sure that they would easily win :-)
.. [QF] #2 M.Bhupathi/ E.Likhovtseva d. Petr Pala (CZE)/ Kveta Hrdlickova
(CZE), 61 62 .. I guess they kept breaking the Czechs - 4 out of 5
break points converted hile facing just one break attempt in a match that
took just 49 minutes .. So it is yet anther MxD semifinal .. They
get the day off tomorrow and face the winners of Kevin Ullyett/ Daniela
Hantuchova vs Bob Bryan/ Katarina Srebotnik (tomorrow) in Friday's SF ..

Sania Mirza plays the first
match of the day tomorrow (thursday) on court 3 against Samantha Stosur
of Australia .. Though she is only ranked #102, Samantha, who is about
to turn 18, is one of the top-rated Australian juniors .. She has only
been playing pro events and has a low ITF ranking only because she has
not played junior events since last June .. She is already ranked #258
in the WTA, which is higher than the ranking for any Indian pro player
except Niru .. She was also in the junior world top-30 last year and was
an Asian Open finalist in 2000 .. Sania has played her once before - a
26 26 loss at the grade-2 UK event last May .. This would be a really good
match to win for Sania .. If she advances to PQF, she will have to come
back and play the 5th seed Myriam Casanova (SUI) or Maria Sharapova (RUS)
who also play their R2 match tomorrow .. Sania's R2 doubles match is also
scheduled for the late evening (against #1 Kuztensova-Mezak) - so heavy
work tomorrow for her, especially if she wins the singles R2 .. In the
last first round doubles match for Indians today, Megha Vakharia and Sasha
Abraham went down to Gabrielle Baker and Adriana Szili of Australia, 36
26 .. They had started well at 3-3 in the first set, having broken the
Australians twice to keep it event, but that was the end of resistence
from the Indians girls as they lost 9 of the next 11 games ..

Safin-Haas and Novak-Johansson
matches in the singles semis .. I doubt if anyone predicted those when
AO started .. Always good to see a top doubles player like Novak doing
so well in singles .. Llodra-Santoro, who beat LP-MB in the second
round upset the 8th seeds Ferreira-Leach as well, and are in the semis
of doubles against unseeded Clement-Boutter .. The other doubles semi is
between #2 Johnson-Palmer (who look even stronger this year) and the 9th
seeds Knowles-Nestor, the comeback team from the past.

Jan 23 Note-2

Sania winning a match at
a junior grand slam is no longer a big story I guess (:-)) .. She and Da-Jung
Hong just won the first round of doubles in a comeback .. [R1]
Sania Mirza/ Da-Jung Hong (KOR) d. Nicole Pitts (USA)/ Sunitha Rao (USA),
64 61 61 .. Here are the details -- SM-DH were broken off DH's serve
in the 3rd game .. They immediately broke Nicole Pitts to even it at 2-2
.. Sania then saved 3 break points and held serve after 8 deuces .. They
had double break chances against Pitts in the 8th game that they could
not convert .. Sania dropped serve in the 9th game to fall behind 4-5 ..
Then Sunitha after serving at triple set point at 40-0, lost 4 points (with
2 DFs in there) to face a break attempt .. After 5 deuces she won the set
at 6-4 .. In the second set our pair broke Rao and Pitts in succession
to win 4 games in a row to go to 5-1 .. Sania saved a break point and served
off the set ... They broke Sunitha again to start the 3rd set .. Sania
again faced 2 break points but again held tough, with the help of an ace,
to make it 2-0 .. Then it turned into a genuine rout of the Americans,
as our pair went up to 5-0, having won 10 games in a row .. The Americans
finally made a last-ditch fight taking a game off Sania's serve and saving
two set points on Pitt's serve, but the Asian pair was just too good to
get past for them on the 3rd match point .. 88 minute match .. 8 of 16
in break chances by our team, and 4 of 10 by the others .. Sania and Da-Jung
now get the top seeds in doubles, Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS)/ Matea Mezak
(CRO) .. Wonderful to see Sania getting to play all these top players consistently
these days.

Rohan Gajjar and Amanjot
Singh started their double match with 4 aces in the first 6 points they
won, but it all went downhill from there for them against the 4th seeds
Brian Baker (USA)/ Frank Dancevic (CAN) who beat them 62 62 in the first
round .. I think their first serve percentage was in the 30s, which wasn't
going to do it against the 4th seeds .. As I type, Sasha Abraham and Megha
Vakharia are playing a good match at 3-3 in the first set against Adriana
Szili and Gabrielle Baker of Australia.

Jan 23 Note-1

At the Australian Open juniors,
after Megha Vakharia could not do much in the restarted match against the
2nd seed Marion Bartoli, losing it 26 36, Sania Mirza advanced without
a whole lot of trouble to the second round .. [R1] #12 S.Mirza d. Ivana
Jovanovich (NZL,152), 62 64 .. Sania made quite a few unforced errors,
but seemed to be in control throughout the match .. They traded breaks
early in the first set and then Sania broke Ivana in succession to wrap
up the first set .. She seemed to hit a few serves over 150 kmph (the fastest
being at 156 kph - 98 mph, which is pretty good for a 15 yr old) .. Her
serve speed seemed to vary all the time, however, and she made 6 double
faults also in the first set, while making only 43% of her first serves
.. In the second set, she had only one double fault and hit 55% in first
serves .. She was ahead at 2-0 in the second, but dropped serve twice to
fall behind 3-4 .. She must have raised her game a bit there, as she broke
Ivana in the 8th and 10th game to finish off the match, which took 57 minutes
.. She comes back for doubles first round with Da-Jung Hong in the
evening again .. Megha and Sasha also play doubles later today .. Also
playing later is Rohan Gajjar and Amanjot Singh in the doubles first round
.. .. Sunitha Rao (USA) won her R1 match and Stephen Amritraj (USA) won
his doubles R1 as well.

At the Delhi ITF grade-3
juniors, Tushar Liberhan upset the 3rd seed Ivan Kokurin (UZB) to reach
the QF - almost like I called it yesterday (:-)) .. Top seed Jaco Mathew
went down in R2 .. On the girls side, Isha beat Ankita Bhambri, and three
youngsters, Kartiki Bhat, Sandri Gangotri and Vandana Murali, all between
13 and 14 years of age had nice wins to reach the QF .. A couple of Taiwanese
girls look tough, but Isha, Sanaa, etc, are doing fine so far .. See the
Delhi
juniors page.

Jan 22 Note-3

LP's trip to the Australian
Open ended without a whole lot of success, I guess .. LP and Miriam Oremans'
did fight hard till the end, before falling in the second round of MxD,
though -- L.Paes/ M.Oremans l. G.Etlis (ARG)/ Paola Suarez (ARG), 46
76(0) 5-10 .. (the 5-10 is for the supertiebreak - ATP simply
writes 7-6 for the supertiebreaker, which is very misleading, but ATP is
never known to lead "right" are they?) .. Anyway, they looked quite out
of sorts at first, with Oremans dropping serve twice in game 3 and 7 to
fall to 2-5. They got one break back from Suarez in the 8th game,
but the set was over soon. Our pair seemed to play much better in the second
set, breaking Suarez to go up to 3-1. However, at 5-3, LP served
a 185 kph ace, and then missed on the next couple of first serves, losing
the points and dropping serve. Then they messed up on a set pt at
30-40 off Etlis, as well .. The mistakes didn't hurt our pair, as they
took the set on a tiebreaker, anyway .. Our pair went up 3-0 at first,
taking two points off Etlis, and cruised easily .. Now there was yet another
tiebreaker (the super-tiebreaker), as they were even with one set each
.. This one did not go like the last one, unfortunately .. They traded
minibreaks on Etlis' and LP's serve. One more minibreak on Oremans'
serve and it was 2-4 down. After Etlis served two, it was 3-6 .. LP served
two and made it 5-6, and Suarez made it 5-8. They took the next two
points off Oremans' serve .. Super tiebreak was done at 5-10 .. I don't
know whay LP and Lisa Raymond parted ways this time .. After all they were
runners up in the last grand slam .. Lisa and Mike Bryan (seeded 6th) also
went down today in the MxD second round.

Also losing this evening
was Amanjot Singh to wildcard Robert Smeets (AUS), 36 36 .. The
story of this match was the number of unforced errors from Amanjot .. Actually
between the players they had about 80 unforced errors, but Amanjot made
about 12 more than the other guy (who I don't think was the toughest possible
opponent, considering that it is a grand slam junior draw) .. They traded
breaks early and then Amanjot dropped serve in games 7 and 9 to lose the
first set .. Again he was behind at 2-4, came back with break in the 7th
game, followed by a drop of serve to lose the second set ..

The rains are back .. As
the rain delay started at 9 pm, Megha Vakharia is behind 2-6 2-3 to the
2nd seed Marion Bartoli .. That scoreline is a bit deceptive .. She has
been playing better than I expected against the world #2 player, having
broken her a couple of times and going pretty close in the number of winners,
etc .. Anyway, it think it is fini for today - which means Sania will play
the first round only tomorrow.

Jan 22 Note-2

The second round match turned
out to be really easy for Mahesh and Elena, as they finished it off in
54 minutes .. [R2] #2 Mahesh Bhupathi / Elena Likhovtseva (RUS) d. Sandon
Stolle (AUS)/ Annabel Ellwood (AUS), 63 62 .. They converted their
second break chance off Ellwood in the 4th game to go ahead to 3-1 .. They
had another couple of break chances in the 8th game off Annabel, but she
held .. Mahesh served a love game and finished off the set .. In the second
set, the pattern continued and the match was over fast .. MB had a couple
of aces in the second set (116 mph maximum serve speed today for him),
and MB-EL converted both the break points they got in the second set ..
They won nearly 80% of their service points both on first and second serves
- which is a strong performance .. Their quarterfinal opponents are yet
to be determined.

LP's MxD match is scheduled
on the Vodfone arena (also a covered court - and so the schedule is not
affected) .. LP's match should be at around 7.30 pm there (3.30 am NY ..
2 pm India) .. The rain has stopped and after a 5 hour delay, they have
started play on the outer courts.

I had just commented yesterday
about Indian players not going to the Abu Dhabi futures .. It turns out
that there was an earlier qualifying round before the round of 16 results
I saw .. Sunil Kumar did indeed go there .. He went down 26
26 to Igor Levine (RUS,1202) in the first round of qualies .. Good to see
Sunil making the trip .. On the other hand, his loss is disappointing -
I have suspected for a while, based on his results, that Sunil has a bit
of Leander in him, in that the smaller stage does not bring out his best
.. If so, it needs to change, and he needs to play at his top ability day
in and day out - No way but to psych oneself up to play the tough qualies
away from the limelight, to come up in the pro tour .. I am sure Sunil
will start doing that soon - after all, he is only starting out on the
big journey .. Vijendra Laad also went to UAE, but lost in Q1 to Motaz
Abou El Khair (EGY) 46 57 .. Vishal Punna beat Mahmoud Nader (UAE) 63 62
before going down in the second round.

Rain came again at the Australian
Open after an hour of play today (Tuesday) .. MB's match has just started,
at 3.45 pm (10.15 am India), as it is in the covered Rod Laver arena ..
Everything else is on stand still for now andthe schedule is all messed
up for juniors and MxD ..

Jan 21 Note-2

The qualies are underway
at the $15K UAE F1 futures in Abu Dhabi .. I had hoped to see Rohan Bopanna
and Vijay Kannan going there, possibly on the way to Lebanon for the Davis
Cup (both were listed in the alternate entry list earlier, along with Mustafa
and Ajay as well) .. None of them went there it seems .. The qualifying
top seed was Yen-Hsun Lu (TPE,543) which means Rohan at #588 did not make
the main draw - and he was not in the qualies either .. Unranked Vishal
Punna was the only Indian, but he went down in the first round of the 2-round
qualies, 26 67 to Paul Logtens (NED,924) .. So, I think Indians missed
out on a good-quality futures nearby .. That is unfortunate - one has to
go to whichever event, wherever, however one can, to get quality competition
to move up in modern tennis - there is just no other way .. I saw LaurenceTieleman,
now ranked 700+ (remember him near top-100, and losing to LP in the semis
at Newport in 1998?), playing in the qualies trying to still make a comeback
in singles .. Hey, that's the spirit! .. I also see Florian Mayer of Germany
(ranked #10 in the world when Sunil Kumar upset him at the wimbledon juniors
last year) in the qualies .. I had hoped Sunil would be one to go down
there too .. Oh well, that's how it goes .. I don't want to sound like
I am criticizing anybody in particular, and I am sure the Indian players
all have their own problems in terms of travel money, etc .. On the other
hand, I still do not see proper tour planning from ANY of our players and
this bugs me to no end .. Indians should not be missing out on chances
to play in Thailand and UAE, two of the places closest to India where good
quality pro events are held .. You have to be breathing tennis all the
time, and you've got to grab whatever tour opportunities there are.

At the Australian Open, MB's
mixed doubles match against the Aussies, Sandon Stolle and Annabel Ellwood,
is scheduled for the center court Tuesday night. LP's MxD is also
on schedule, as are the singles R1 for Sania, Amanjot and Megha .. The
junior doubles draw came out .. Sania' partner at the Victorian juniors
title-run, Linda Smolenakova is playing with country-mate Kristina Czaficova
and they are seeded 7th .. Sania has a talented partner, however, in Da-Jung
Hong (KOR) .. They are unseeded and face Nicole Pitts and Sunitha Rao of
USA .. If they advance, they may run right into the top seeds Kuznetsova-Mezak,
though .. Sasha Abraham and Megha Vakharia also made the draw, and they
play Gabrielle Baker and Adriana Szili of AUS .. Adriana is one of the
most promising australian youngsters, actually .. In the boys' doubles
draw, Amanjot Singh and Rohan Gajjar have a tough first round against the
4th seeds, Brian Baker (USA) and Frank Dancevic (CAN) .. It's a 5-round
draw for doubles and action starts on wednesday.

The grade-3 Delhi ITF juniors
started today .. It was sad to see us once again not getting the kind of
quality foreign participation expected for a grade-3 event, though it is
rather better than in the past with some decent Israeli players showing
up (I mentioned the messed up scheduling of this grade-3 event - and that
was the problem) .. On the girls' side, they didn't even have 32 players
to fill up the draw! .. A pity .. Edwin Gerard (USA) upset the 8th seed
Ivan Kovalev (KAZ) .. Saurabh Kohli gave the 5th seed Prabowo of Indonesia
a run for the money before falling 63 67(6) 57 .. Tushar Liberhan, the
one that I am watching for, advanced with an easy 62 62 win over Miki Lasser
(ISR) .. Top seed Jaco Matthew had a tough time against the qualifier VM
Ranjeeth in a 76(4) 36 63 win .. The top 5 seeds had first round byes in
the girls' draw and the 8th seed Sandra Sashidharan got upset by Yung Jan
Chan (TPE) .. The draw brings up a very interesting second round match
between top seed isha Lakhani and Ankita Bhambri .. The match between the
very young Kartiki Bhat against Olexandra Verkhnyatska (UZB) should be
interesting too .. AITA has put up the Monday scores at their website
which is getting regularly updated these days .. That's good, as it makes
the job easier for me to hunt around for scores .. I will continue to archive
the results at this web site as well, as we have been doing for the last
4-5 years.

Jan 21 Note-1

Rains came down today after
a couple of hours of play and most matches got postponed at the Australian
Open .. LP's MxD match on Monday is potponed, as are the matches for Amanjot
Singh, Megha Vakharia, etc. Stephen Amritraj (USA) lost 26 16 to
the 6th seed Luka Gregorc (SLO,9) .. That's it.

I
am getting some inquiries from US college coaches who are interested in
Indian junior players .. I would like to be able to contact Indian players
(some of the coaches are inquiring about specific names) .. If any of the
junior players are reading this, please contact me .. Or if any of the
other readers know the contact emails/address for any junior player, let
me know .. I would like to have a mailing list where I can post general
announcements and inquiries from the coaches too .. Please email
me - R.Jayakrishnan.